Mother-of-five with stage 4 lung cancer climbs Andes with daughter for one last ...

A mother-of-five with stage IV lung cancer and her daughter hiked up to the summit of the highest mountain in the Americas.

Isabella de la Houssaye, 55, was diagnosed in January 2018 - a shock given that she had never smoked, never drank and lived an incredibly active lifestyle.

Since then, she had been crossing several items off her bucket list including completing 50 marathons in 50 states and racing in the Ironman World Championships.

Now, she's determined to go on one last adventure with each of her children, specifically to push them to their limits and teach them about 'joy and suffering alike'.

In an exclusive interview with The New York Times, de la Houssaye and her 22-year-daughter, Bella Crane, detailed how they spent January hiking up to the top of Mount Aconcagua, the highest mountain in both the Southern and Western Hemispheres.

In January of this year, Isabella de la Houssaye, 55 - who has stage IV lung cancer - and her daughter Bella Crane, hiked up to the summit of Mount Aconcagua, the highest mountain not in the Himalayas. Pictured: de la Houssaye, left, and Crane, right, at the summit

De la Houssaye (left, and with her daughter, Bella, right) was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in January 2018. It was a shock to the mother-of-five who never drank or smoke

De la Houssaye told The Times that she and her husband, David Crane, an energy industry investor, raised all their children to be outdoors enthusiasts like they are.

It's how Cason, David, Bella, Oliver and Christopher - listed from oldest to youngest - achieved feats such as hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and rowing solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

According to PEOPLE, de la Houssaye first started experiencing symptoms, mainly chest pain, in fall 2017, but assumed the pain was from a running injury.

By the time she was examined in January 2018, she was told she had stage IV lung cancer

'I had a good size tumor, seven centimeters, in my lungs. My entire sacrum [the pelvis] was cancer,' de la Houssaye told the magazine. 'I had six tumors in my brain, I had them in my sternum, I had them in my pelvis. It was a huge wake-up call.'

Lung cancer occurs when cells in the lungs begin to grow out of control and crowd out normal cells.

It is the leading cause of cancer death in the US for both men and women, claiming more lives that breast, colon, prostate and ovarian cancers combined.

The American Cancer Society estimates more than 228,000 cases will be diagnosed in 2019 and that more than 142,000 deaths will occur.

Symptoms don't usually present themselves until the cancer is advanced and include a cough that doesn't go away, coughing up blood, chest pain and bone